Wolf Thoughts
by Kin-outcast1
Summary: Scenes from Roadkill in Delilah's POV. Why didn't she just kill Cal and prove herself to the Kin?


**Disclaimer: I do not own Cal Leandros. That's Niko's job, isn't it?**

When Delilah spoke, others knew she was not pure wolf. When Delilah spoke, it came out in garbled, broken sentences, and others immediately came to the rash conclusion that her vocal cords were perhaps frozen in some distortion between wolf and human. But it wasn't her vocal chords.

It was her brain.

Delilah was mad, and she knew this. She could taste it in her own breath, and hear it in the ugly, disjointed thoughts that echoed through her head. She had to constantly focus, focus, because if she lost herself in madness, she would not be who she wanted to be … she'd never be able to become Alpha of her own pack. If her mind went, so did her life. It was only when she was being attacked, when she shifted into her true form, when she needed to _kill_ that she let herself go … so that she could rip and tear and claw and kill with the mightiest passion, and crush the son-of-a-bitch who was trying to bring her down.

So, when the Kin grabbed her hours after midnight in an abandoned alley, it was all she could do to hold her sanity together and not tear them apart. She fought them, of course, and – pressing one's throat hard against the filthy wall, demanded, "You hunt your own? Kill your own? Kin?"

The Kin wolf snarled, bringing a human lip back over wolf incisors. "Cabal seeks you. You are wanted _now." _So she came, at the will of Cabal, her Alpha. She walked alone because did not want their hands on her. But that all changed when they reached the abandoned warehouse and stuffed her into the dark smoky room that stank of Kin. "You have defiled yourself," growled a voice in her face, as hands and claws alike grabbed her shoulders and neck and hair and held her still. Cabal's face materialized in the darkness. "You have betrayed us."

"I. Am. Kin," she growled back, turning just enough into a wolf so that her teeth protruded menacingly from her mouth. "I … am … loyal …"

And then they said his name … _"Caliban Leandros" … _and Delilah had nothing to say. They knew. They held her down and they breathed rotten flesh into her face and they knew, and they said "you will kill him, you will redeem yourself". And she thought it was perhaps the first time in so many years that the command to "kill" did not give her a chill of pure pleasure. Suddenly, in her eyes she saw many things – she saw Cerberus, powerful, manic, demented, taking everything from her and then ripping his own child from her stomach in a scarlet flow of baby flesh and Delilah's own guts. And then she saw Caliban. He was Auphe …. his black eyes had monsters in them, and he tasted pleasantly of madness … but his kisses were soft and strangely gentle and his hands were gentler still … and when he killed, he killed _with _her, at her side.

This passed through her head in vaguely distorted images, and before she knew what she was saying, it burst from her lips. "He is too much for me," she hissed. "He is _Auphe." _Through the darkness, she could see the hesitation of many wolves, and smell their fear. "I will lead him to you. I will give you gift … Auphe blood, a challenge." She smiled, fearless even against the bloodthirsty eyes of her Alpha, an Alpha she fought for every day, but one she would kill without remorse if it meant taking his place. But if this were true … why would she not kill Caliban? That pup, he would never stand against her even with his many shiny toys. She could crush him down. She could rip his Auphe heart out and feed it to him. So why didn't she?

"A gift?" asked Cabal, inspecting her with wolf eyes. He liked her, Delilah knew … it was why he was giving her this second chance in the first place. It was why she wasn't perhaps dead already. "If this Auphe is too much for you, Delilah," he said, gripping her chin in a cold hand. "Then he deserves to die. I accept this gift."

She was freed. The agreement was clear, and Delilah went home and slept on the roof because of the heat, staring up at the starless sky. Caliban could take the wolves, and if he couldn't – it was out of her hands. She had done too much for that cub already. Too much. She shifted just before falling asleep, so she could dream vivid wolf dreams with blood of a brighter red.

Perhaps it was because he was good. Delilah cursed herself for even thinking these thoughts … but they were things that plagued her now. She had betrayed the Kin by being with an Auphe … but she had betrayed herself, her pride, by saying he was too much for her. All for his life. Was it because he was not really a monster after all? Behind the bloodlust, there was just a boy … this she knew. Was that why his life was so valuable to her? Was she such a fool?

And then it happened. It wasn't too long before they would meet the wolves, it wasn't too long after they'd started on the road trip. Ӧrdӧgs attacked. Delilah shifted, joining the two red Wolves in the tussle with the skinny pups … just another minor detour along the road.

The beasts were not difficult. The battle was soon finished. And then …

And then. Caliban became Auphe.

In her wolf form, just as dreams were so much more vivid, life was too, in a sense. She could feel Auphe all around her, clogging up the air with a bloodlust even a wolf like her could not match. She saw a monster in Caliban Leandros' eyes that was so ugly, so horrible, so red … she stopped killing. She stopped and she stared and she watched him make a door in the air and disappear. And she thought, in a single, fragile moment of humanness, _There. The pretty boy is gone. _And then bloodlust took over once again.

She followed her monster into the woods.

She bent her head into his kill and tasted red blood, and when she looked up, she saw the same blood dribbling down his chin, staining his human teeth as he smiled at her with his newly blood-colored eyes. He reminded her of Kin, and he reminded her of herself, so much.

So she feasted with him, howled with his laughter, and licked away his blood, welcoming him to her world. Welcoming him to hell.


End file.
